Check out how the BBC reflexively sides with WikiHacks and their publishing of stolen emails from Stratfor. Stratfor is not a government agency, and has not been accused of any crime, yet the BBC opens the piece by describing WikiHacks as a “whistleblowing website”. Of course, anyone who is aware of boss Julian Assange’s open declaration that his intent is to harm US geopolitical goals will know what his real agenda is here.
In any case, in stark contrast to their treatment of the leaked CRU emails (there is still not a single scrap of evidence that they were stolen), the BBC sees nothing wrong – declines to editorialize against, really – with the fact that WikiHacks got the Stratfor emails from the hacker group, Anonymous, who admits to illegally obtaining the emails, along with credit card numbers and other data.
Notice also the accompanying photo of a gently beaming, serene St. Julian. Selecting photos is an editorial decision, one which can influence the readers’ interpretation of a story.
St. Julian is on record, we’re told, as stating that some of the far-left activist groups on which Stratfor was gathering information are “fighting for a just cause”. So it’s not so much whistleblowing as it is an attempt to undermine a political enemy. But never mind, he’s still a hero to the BBC for doing it. To further cast aspersions on Stratfor – the victim of a crime here – we even get a quote from Barron’s that the organization is a kind of “shadow CIA”. Just so you all know who the real bad guys are here, and to re-inforce the false description of WikiHacks as whistleblowers.
Then comes the outrageous bit:
Despite the new disclosures, Wikileaks is still facing difficulties on several fronts.
Despite? Despite releasing stolen information from an organization not of the Left, BBC? In other words, the Beeboid who wrote this – and an approving editor – believe that releasing stolen emails from Stratfor should go a long way towards rehabilitating WikiHacks in the public eye. This is the BBC taking sides against Stratfor and in favor of WikiHacks.
So was News of the World a “whistleblowing” newspaper?
We await a leak or theft of the Balen Report. I wonder what line the BBC would take – for, or against? Love to be a fly on the wall for that discussion. Since by a circuitous route we paid for Balen, I don’t see much argument against stealing our own property. The thief in this case is the bBC.
If it`s Climategate stuff, or blows Murdoch out of the water, then it`s targetted and appropriate…and the Cause is all.
If it`s Balen or BBC salaries and tax dodges…it`s commercially sensitive and not up for discussion-and certainly NOT to be made a news item…for the Cause-as seen by them and through their virtuous prism-will be put back or harmed.
BBC are judge and jury on all this…and their decision is final and just.
Possibly a Thirty Year Rule for BBC machinations if we`re all good boys and girls about them…for they`re always right…on balance and just about…yeah, right!
Careful there CJ, the bBC Lurkers here will be gratefully noting down your suggested communications strategy. Not too late to bill them you know. £20k a day seems to be the going rate, according to the Milliband scale of fees for advice .
Yes, indeed: ‘whistleblowing’ generally means an employee reporting where his employer has acted against the public interest. It’s clearly a loaded term.
There’s the obvious point that whistleblowerrs are respected becuase they’re risking their careers, while St Julian is risking nothing except a major league tongue bath from the left, but there’s something else too.
Whistleblowers release information about actual wrongdoing, while St Julian claims the right to pry into private information for no better reason than he disapproves of the people concerned. In so far as his position is that anyone who opposes the liberal left deserves to have their life torn apart by the left’s media ninjas, it’s an entirely totalitarian position.
Exactly. WikiHacks isn’t a whistleblowing organization: it’s a political activist group. One which the BBC supports because they’re on the same side.
There’s a fair bit of built-in plausible denialbility to that piece, but yes, ‘whistle-blowing’ and ‘despite’ do rather give the game away.
If what’s featured in the BBC blurb is the worse Wikileaks managed to get out of the hack, how extremely boring.
Let us never forget that Assange is the odious piece of filth who leaked classified information on the identities Afghans helping to defend democracy from the Taliban.
As far as I’m concerned it should be open season on this guy.
The hacked US cables contained the names of Aghani civilians who supplied information to the US military. St Julian wanted unredacted publishing and it was put to him that these people’s lives would be seriously endangered if that was done. According to Guardian journalist David Leigh, St Julian’s reply was
“So what? They’re American informants – they deserve to die”.
What a diamond bloke the Beeb’s St Julian is.